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I have to admit that I find this really rather amusing. Google has kept its word about one of the components of the various search services. As a result, Microsoft now attacks Google for doing precisely that.

At issue is the new campaign from Redmond, the "Scroogled" site. The basic contention is that when you search on Google then you only get shown those vendors who have paid to be included in the engine:

Bing is attacking Google over its shift to a pay-for-play shopping search engine through a new “Scroogled” site, pledging that Bing has “honest search.” Great campaign, if it were true. It’s not. Bing itself does the same things it accuses Google of. It’s also another indictment of how little the FTC is doing to protect consumers from “search results” they might not realize are ads.

Microsoft is launching its latest anti-Google campaign this week. A new Scroogled site has emerged that directly attacks Google's "unfair pay-to-rank shopping practices" says Microsoft. "Simply put, all of their shopping results are now paid ads," reads a statement on the site.

Scroogled stresses how Bing is better than Google. It says, “In the beginning, Google preached, "Don't be evil"—but that changed on May 31, 2012. That's when Google Shopping announced a new initiative. Simply put, all of their shopping results are now paid ads.”

The site adds: “In their under-the-radar announcement, Google admits they've now built "a purely commercial model" that delivers listings ranked by "bid price." Google Shopping is nothing more than a list of targeted ads that unsuspecting customers assume are search results. They call these "Product Listing Ads" a "truly great search.""

Under the new policy, which Google quietly rolled out in mid-October, the company highlights the products of paid advertisers on Google Shopping, its comparison-shopping service, while effectively discriminating against other companies who do not pay to be listed. For example, one company frequently missing in Google Shopping results is Amazon.com.

As is that.

Here's what is actually happening. At google.com you'll search for something and you'll be shown the standard results of the algorithm. You'll also be shown a variety of ads by people who have paid Google to show ads. These ads will be clearly marked as being different from the straight search results.

In other words, the results will be, tweaks to the algorithms aside, exactly the same as what you get at bing.com. Search results plus ads. We can always have fun arguing about whose algorithms are better but the essence of what is being delivered is the same.

Then if you go to google.com/shopping you'll be results purely from those who have paid Google to be included in the results. Bing does not offer this functionality. Google has previously announced that this is exactly and purely what /shopping is going to be doing.

At which point Microsoft attacks Google for a) offering something Bing does not and b) offering something that Google said it would.